The Hunt for Red October: Virus Hunters Try to Catch Diplomatic Time Bomb

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/how-russian-virus-hunters-tracked-down-a-global-espionage-network-a-879467.html




The virus hunters have their headquarters in a nondescript office building in northwest Moscow. Vitaly Kamlyuk, a 28-year-old Belarusian with gel in his hair and a shiny black tie, sits in front of a giant monitor wall displaying a world map. He is having a discussion with a pale female computer scientist and a nerdish-looking man with long hair and a bouncy goatee.

The three virus hunters, part of a special unit at Kaspersky, a Russian computer firm, are hunting for "Red October." It's the moniker they have given to a newly discovered spy program, inspired by the almost noiseless submarine in the eponymous novel by Tom Clancy.
The virus has infected at least 350 government ministries, embassies and research facilities worldwide, especially in the former Soviet republics. The attackers apparently had "a special interest in geopolitically significant information," says virus analyst Kamlyuk.

The Russian Embassy in the United States was apparently among the targets. Tens of thousands of documents, probably including classified reports to the foreign ministry in Moscow, reportedly fell into the hands of cyber spies. It's possible that a total of several terabytes of data were stolen, the contents of which could very well be as explosive as the cables made public by Wikileaks.

[leveymg]

1. I would love to see what the Russians really think and say to each other. Same with USG and others

Probably wouldn't be at all a bad thing if all secrets and deception were wiped out in a single worldwide data dump.

[xchrom]

2. oooh - i like the way you think~

[NeoGreen]

3. So if the forgiveness of all Debt is a "Jubliee"...

... what would the exposure of all secrets be called?

Hmmm... chance to create a new word?